Wild life | 23 August 2018

Laikipia

‘This year we’re too broke to take our cattle to the show,’ I told Mark. For six months we had been preparing the show string, training our Borans to stand correctly, to walk well, squandering money on feed, brass nose rings and fancy halter ropes. As the big day loomed I looked at the costs of the lorry to Nairobi and all those expenses in town, and I knew we could not afford it. The bullets are no longer flying in Laikipia but after all the dramas on the farm in recent years we are skint. My tyres are bald, the soles of my boots are falling off. I had such a lovely mob of six heifers ready to go — feminine, structured, big bellied with muscling over the top. It was a tough moment for all the stockmen on the farm when I decided they would be staying at home.